io8 
Field  Columbian  Museum — Reports,  Vol.  i. 
the  re-arrangement  of  the  Zoological  halls.  The  Museum  now  has 
two  very  handsome  bird  rooms  and  several  groups  and  uniquely 
mounted  set  pieces.  The  birch  cases  have  all  been  mahoganized, 
and  new  mahogany  cases  provided  for  a  duck  group,  horn-bill  group, 
ostrich  group,  etc.  New  oological  cases  have  been  purchased,  and 
this  material  re-arranged  and  re-installed.  Room  27  in  this  Depart- 
ment contains  North  American  species  only,  while  Room  26  will  con- 
tain the  remainder  of  the  collection.  The  Department  in  a  number 
of  directions  has  been  noticeably  improved. 
A  New  Department. — With  the  assent  of  the  Curators  whose 
departments    would    be    drawn  upon  for  some  of  the  material,  a 
new    Department    named,     "The    Department    of  Monographic 
Collections,"    has    been    organized    for   the  purpose    of  bringing 
together    for   illustrating    particular    phases    of    culture,  material 
that   had    appropriate  place    in  two  or  more  of   the  departments 
of  the   Museum,   the  general    scheme  being    upon  chronological 
or  evolutionary  lines.    Two  divisions  have  been  established  in  this 
Department,  Printing  and  Graphic  Arts,  and  Musical  Instruments. 
The  purpose  of  the  first  division  is  to  show  the  history,  the  evolution 
and  the  practical  processes  of  the  arts  employed  in  printing  and  illus- 
tration.    The  subjects  are  treated  from  the  modern  point  of  view, 
that    is    to    say,   as   technical    processes   of   the   useful  and  fine 
arts    of    today,  dating  back  to  the    fourteenth    century,  previous 
to    which    time    they    are   purely    of    archeologic    interest.  The 
section    of    Graphic    Arts    has    a    large    field.     The  arrangement 
of    the   specimens   is    according   to    the    classification  of  Koehler, 
that    is,    first    the    old    processes,  including    wood  engraving, 
steel  and  copper  line  engraving,  etching  and  mezzo-tint,  and  the 
lithographic  and  substitute  processes.     The  modern  methods  are  to 
be  shown  by  themselves,  and  include  all  of  the  applications  of  pho- 
tography to  the  graphic  arts.     In  the  line  of  older  processes,  several 
interesting  accessions  have  been  made.     A  small  fund  has  been 
expended  in  prints  that  illustrate  in  an  excellent  manner  the  results 
of  the  different  older  processes,  both  plain  and  in  color.     They  are 
at  the  same  time  good  specimens  of  fine  art,  worthy  to  be  placed  upon 
the  walls  of  the  Museum.     In  the  line  of  the  modern  processes  there 
has  been  added  recently  an  excellent  series  of  specimens  illustrating 
the  half  tone  process,  and  the  Museum  section  of  Photography  is 
now  preparing  a  collection  that  will  illustrate  the  history  and  develop- 
ment of  photography,  which  will  be  included  under  this  group.  In 
the  division  of  Musical  Instruments,  the  installation  at  this  time  is  far 
from  satisfactory,  owing  to  the  crowded  condition  of  the  un-related 
